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Street lights the colour of Milk of Magnesia dimly shone through the cotton wool haze that had wrapped itself about the city. In the distance, pale yellow car headlights fought through the smog-fog. The atmosphere was miserable, suffocatingly heavy. Another winter's night in Delhi.
Or in Baghdad. Watching the night skyline of the Iraqi capital last week, you had the oddest sensation. One moment it was a perfectly ordinary, dull grey; the next it was lit up in different psychedelic shades: gold, orange, green. As Christiane Amanpour said on Friday (CNN), if anything was surreal, this was it, this was it. In the morning, their faces freshly painted, TV anchors stood in the midst of a city bristling, like cities do, with day time activity; at night, in the aftermath of a bombing, with their `war' paint retouched, they stood in its ghostly emptiness. Then, the dust settled, the sky cleared, the cars drove by. Another winter's night in Baghdad. ``A tale of two cities'', commented a reporter (CNN).
``Secondwave of air strikes on Iraq under way.'' `` Air raid sirens in Baghdad''. Written updates such as these on CNN and BBC, constantly appeared at the bottom of the TV screen but the picture of Baghdad, remained the same. Still, as if the city was asleep. But who could sleep knowing that B-52 bombers were just a siren away? As a succession of verbose anchors spoke, you looked behind their shoulders at Baghdad and shivered: someone was walking over its grave.
We saw dilapidated buildings, the injured in hospital beds; we heard Iraq's foreign minister, health minister, trade minister (?). Mostly we heard from Washington (CNN and BBC). Of course their reports were biased. What did you expect from them? Bad Sad's Sayings? STAR News tried for a different perspective: it gave space to the other side of the story: Arab protests, Indian point of view, etc.
The video tapes of the bombing heightened your sense of ill ease. First, the screen pitched black. Suddenly, a torchlit rocket-bomb flashed past. And you weretripping like the Beatles with Lucy in the sky with diamonds as the most breathtaking fireworks display filled the screen. President Clinton was celebrating the 4th.of July.
CNN. 1991. The Gulf War. The footage was so exactly identical, it was a twin. Except Desert Fox is more clinical than Desert Storm. You're briefed, you're debriefed. By the Pentagon, the White House, William Cohen, by the TV stations. The whole wide world knows the schedule: the bombings will occur under cover of the night when Baghdad, as the BBC would have it, ``hunkered down''. Was this a video game, was it film? Either way, it wasn't for real.Real wars are fought on land, sea and in the air, not the airwaves of satellite TV; real attacks are secret with lightning, unexpected strikes on unsuspecting enemies, not public events notified well in advance; real casualties are bloodied faces, remains of the dead or injured, not the crumbling walls of cement buildings. Vietnam. Afghanistan. Those were real.
This is a phoney.Stage-managed. Sanitised. Made for TV. Television as anaesthesia: its Baghdad images leave you etherized, numbed. How much can you feel for crumbling cement? What can you feel when the TV anchor, watching the Tornados take-off, tells you ``it was a very impressive sight,'' as if she had chanced upon the Taj Mahal? What is there to feel when the ``relentless pounding'' of a city is described as a sport: ``Bout two is over...bout three is about to begin''?(CNN) How do you feel when Adm.Scowcroft barks ``Saddam is a pain in the neck'' and then thanks the BBC for its hospitality: ``nice to be with you''? Huh?
The shadow of the impeachment of a President darkens this absurd drama. TV stations seesaw between the two. On Friday morning you tune in for the latest news on Iraq and find Republican Livingstone telling all the world he's had extra-marital affairs. ``It is wrong, it is wrong, it is wrong, it is wrong, it is wrong!''screams Democrat Gephardt and for one mistaken moment you think he is referring to thebombing. No sirree. He's enraged because while sons and daughters of the U.S of America are out there risking their lives for God and their globe, the House of Representatives is contemplating Clinton's navel, sorry impeachment.
Thursday, Friday: you reel between Washington's war of words and bombs blasting Baghdad. As they say: choose you poison.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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